Nashville

Greetings for Nashville, Tennessee where I am writing to you from the Factiva booth while we wait for the sound crew to finish hooking up the A/V equipment for tomorrow. I’m here for the next few days for the annual gathering of the Special Librarian’s Association where we will show off our latest developments.

The conference is being held in the massive Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center which is more like a self-enclosed cruise ship than a resort. Many of the 2,000 rooms face inwards with balconies overlooking huge enclosed atriums, each with their own Southern theme. It’s very much like a Disneyland with climate controlled temperatures and constant lighting so you begin to forget what the weather is like outside.

I later went for a run out around the town (we’re about 20 minutes northwest of downtown) and got more a feel for what it’s like around here, basically strip malls until you get down near the Cumberland River which is a nice lazy river like the Deleware back home. Passed quite a few lots selling RV Mobile Homes with names like Pioneer and Intruder (only $136k), it’d be nice, just once, to see one of these called something less intrusive like, Whisper.